Memoirs of a Broken Heart
by Marlin's Wife
Summary: Marlin came to Forget-Me-Not Valley for change... little did he know how drastically the decision would shape his life.
1. Chapter 1: Shattered Glass

**Copyright: I do not own anything in Harvest Moon. If I had... well, I don't. **

**Author's Note: Well, this is my very first fan fic, but I _crave_ honesty, so please read, write and review! If you like it, feel free to leave good comments. It'll keep my spirit up and keep me writing! Enjoy!**

I never even wanted to come to Forget-Me-Not. Perhaps, if I had not, none of this would ever have happened. But do I regret it, looking back on the many years I have spent here? Has it really been seven decades? Was I really just a young boy the first time I stepped foot into the valley, the first time my eyes were blessed with the sight of her?

Celia. My beautiful, perfect, amazing love. How could I ever regret you?

Laura. Despite all that we have been through, despite my illness, my emotional detachment, my unfaithfulness, she never stopped loving me. When I think of her, I see the wife I was lucky to have, the woman whose love I was unworthy of, the mother of my son.

My son. Ethan. If I was ever given anything purely good in this world, it was Ethan. If I could take it back, save one person from the hurt I had caused, it would be my son. I love you, Ethan. I know I was a father to be ashamed of, and I know right now you haven't a hope of forgiving me. No love is more perfect than a parent for their child, yet no love more hurtful than a child for his parent. I can never express to you, my son, how sorry I am for the hurt I have caused you.

Many would call my life a broken one, a life torn between the two things I desired but could only have one of. But they do not know my true story. They do not understand the turmoil I struggled with for the years after I made my choice. This is for the ones who never knew the true story, my story. But mostly this is for the people I love more than life itself; my son, my lover, and my wife. I am sorry.

I was given no choice on the night of my eighteenth birthday, when I awoke with staggering chest pains in a whitewall hospital room. My mother sat by my bedside, along with my younger sister Isabelle. Nicole, a girl I had been dating on and off for around a year now, was nowhere in sight, a small detail yet one that would haunt me for the years to come.

My mother's tired face was streaked with tears, and little Isabelle watched me with wide eyes, as if afraid I would vanish before her. She was only seven at the time, a full eleven years younger than I, and not my whole sister, although I loved her dearly. She was the product of one of our mother's live-in-boyfriends, a lowlife who had run not long after his daughter's birth. They all ran eventually, my own father leading the line. A more hardworking, loving mother that never was, but she was a fool for any man who offered her love.

I kept my eyes lightly shut to give an illusion of unconsciousness, but they flew open the second I heard Him enter the room.

Who was He? He was a man, around six feet tall with light brown hair, slight stubble around the chin, and thin reading glasses that hung on a chain around His neck. Like all that worked in Mercy General Hospital, He wore a long white lab coat with a baby blue nametag. I never did glance at it, and to this day I do not know the name of the Man who condemned me.

"Well, Mr. Robinson," He began, rubbing his eyes lightly with one hand, clutching a transparent clipboard in the other. It was well after one a.m., that I remember perfectly, and the only doctors on duty were either hyped on coffee or asleep on their feet.

"Marlin," my mother broke in sharply, her normally high voice shriller than usual. "My son's name is Marlin, Doctor."

He nodded awkwardly, cleared His throat, and motioned towards little Isabelle. "Yes, well, Ms. Robinson, we need to discuss your son. Is it possible the little girl can…?"

"No," I broke in automatically. My throat contracted instantly, the air leaving my lungs in an unexpected gush until I was left gasping. Doctor He calmly walked over to my bedside, checked my vital machine that beeped irregularly every few seconds, and waited until my attack subsided. "Please, Martin, don't strain yourself," He murmured quietly to me, passing a plastic cup of water I hadn't seen Him fill to my mother.

"What's wrong with him?" little Isabelle broke in, her tiny voice like wind-chimes to me. But I could not fake a smile, not even for Isabelle. "What's wrong with Marlin?"

"Well, we really do not know," He began awkwardly, sitting on the edge of the bed and moving almost immediately to the other side of the room, away from my family and me. "We can run more tests, but from what we can already gather, it seems as if you have developed an infection. It spread from your chest to your lungs in a remarkably short amount of time, which caused your situation here. Do you remember anything that happened, before your blackout?"

I remembered, but only images, and briefly. A kiss upon the cheek for my mother before heading to the bar for the night, to celebrate my eighteenth in true eighteen-year-old fashion; whiskey shots with my trusty fake ID. I had been drinking regularly now for two years, but despite what my mother had occasionally accused me, I was not an alcoholic. It was more of a hobby, a way to get out of my average, everyday life… if only for a little while.

The bar had been crowded, and I had only just received my first few shots when it happened.

The attack was my first, and as firsts usually go, memorable. My drink slipped from my hand, came crashing to the floor with a sickening shatter. No one but the bar tender paid it any mind, and only then to snap that I would be charged for the glass as well. I couldn't answer; I couldn't breathe. My vision became blurred, my breathing shallow and then nonexistent. A constricting pain, the tightest poison embrace to ever have held me, grabbed my chest. I was falling, falling, tumbling into blackness….

And then I awoke here.

Returning to reality, I shook my head at Him, not trusting my lungs to cooperate.

"Marlin…" my mother whispered, her voice quivering despite the strong composure she was trying so desperately to withhold for her children. "But Doctor, he's only eighteen! How in the world could he get so sick, so quickly?"

"Does he work around any construction sites?"

Why was I being talked about as if I were not right there? I was eighteen, for God's sake, not eight!

"I work in an appliance store," I snapped. "It's not like I'm going around huffing paint fumes."

He looked surprised to hear me speak, but straightened up immediately. "Of course not," he soothed. "But the city has become more congested lately because of the two new factories that opened up not far from the hospital. Unfortunately, the air pollution can cause weak lungs to become even weaker. Do you have a family history, Ms. Robinson, of any cancers or upper respiratory problems? Your husband?"

"My dad left," I snapped. I hated when people asked of the man, especially to my mother. "And no, she doesn't."

He looked very uncomfortable. Good.

"Well, family history or no, you have a problem," He said coldly. "We can put you on steroids and try an inhaler, but I cannot guarantee they will help. The only thing…"

"We'll take it!" my mother interrupted. Tears had begun to freefall once more down her cheeks, her grip tightening on Isabelle. "Anything that will help him, Doctor, we will take it."

"The only thing," He continued, slightly annoyed by the interruption. "that may help Marlin is an experimental drug that recently came out, but it is risky and the price quite high. And I cannot promise that it will cure him, or even have an effect, but it is an option."

"How high?" my mother whispered, and a pain worst than the attack formed in my chest. Money had always been tight for my mother; raising two children on her own, working several jobs at once and living in a tiny apartment took its toll on a single mother. I avoided asking her for anything that would come out of her pocket and not my own. I couldn't let her.

"No, Doctor," I murmured, almost inaudibly. "I won't take it. Is there anything else?"

He glanced at me, sighed, and rubbed his eyes once more. "The only other thing I can suggest is moving to a less congested area, away from the city. Cleaner air would be much better for your lungs and could prevent another attack."

"Away from the city?" I repeated. I couldn't leave. This was my home, this was where my family was. I couldn't leave. Where in the world would I go?

"I strongly recommend it, especially if you choose not to go with the experimental drug," Doctor He exclaimed, His face much more animated now that he could recommend a solid treatment. "There is no telling how the congestion could continue wearing on your lungs, and the next attack could be much, much worse. In fact, if I may, I know a lovely little valley right down the hill, not far from the city but with much cleaner air. A colleague of mine resides there, and he says it is a lovely little village."

"Forget-Me-Not Valley?" my mother chimed in suddenly. "You want to send my son to Forget-Me-Not?"

"Ma'am, it would be the best for him," Doctor He said firmly.

And though I was eighteen, a legal adult, my fate was sealed.

Little did I know how thankful I would one day be for the Nameless Doctor.

**Author's Note: So, do you like? Chapter 2 is already up, so if you like it, keep on going! Trust me, this was just a bit of background and a little foreshadowing in the beginning. As the game does not elaborate much on Martin's illness, I had to make do with what I was given, so.... **


	2. Chapter 2: Brother

**Author's Note: Alright, due to the fact that AnWL is not the most realistic of games, I had to improvise; meaning I had to change up the relationships and enviroment a tad. Nothing drastic, just enough to keep it in the lines of realistic. Enjoy!**

I didn't go home after that. The nurses told me they were monitoring my breathing, and if I had another attack without them there it may be much worse. So my mother instead took Isabelle home alone. It was past three am, and the little girl had long since fallen asleep.

My mother reached down over my bed to kiss me upon the forehead, promising to return in a few hours after she got some much needed rest and found a babysitter for little Isabelle. I knew, with a certainty, I wouldn't see my little sister again for a long time. So when her little hand came within my grasp, I held onto it gently and kissed it. She barely stirred, not even enough to open her little brown eyes, and I touched her raven hair. It was the only thing that our family shared. My mother held her tightly, tears in her eyes, as if knowing this was her children's goodbyes. When I finished memorizing every line in her perfect face, I nodded, and they were gone.

***

Three days after I said my goodbyes to Isabelle, my mother and an intruding nurse sat beside me in an old cab heading down a bumpy dirt road. We spoke not a word, the nurse staring off absently out of the window, my mother holding my hand in a vice grip. The leather brown suitcase wedged between my knees in the cramped space served as a painful, terrible reminder of what was to come.

"Here we are, ladies and gents," the gruff driver grumbled as the cab came to a squealing halt. "Can't go down that hill there. You'll have to get to the valley on your own."

Without speaking, the nurse grabbed my suitcase from in-between my knees and lugged it out of the cab, grunting slightly like the pig she resembled. She had been my least favorite nurse, and not because she didn't speak; I actually found silence an admirable attribute in a person. No, she was simply a rude and impatient person, one who snapped at my mother once as she attempted to rearrange my bedspread. I had spoken not a word to her since.

My mother and I followed the Pig Nurse out of the car, and I threw a brief thanks over to the driver, who provided yet another grunt. My brow furrowed, I realized with a sickening jolt that this man would be the last I would see of the city, perhaps ever. Refusing to let tears even enter my eyes, I shut them tightly and moved away to where the nurse and my mother stood.

"Bit of a walk," the nurse said curtly, motioning down the hill. "You ready?"

These words were strangely omniscient, and I felt a different kind of pressure in my chest as I cast my eyes to my mother. She smiled slightly, knowing this was goodbye. It was an unspoken agreement between the two of us that she would not accompany to my new residence; instead she would wait with the cab driver until my nurse returned. It would be much too painful for both of us were she to come.

"Marlin," she murmured, opening her arms. I embraced her, realizing how tiny she had become. I had grown tall, almost six feet, and a giant to my mother's petite frame. I kissed her graying black hair and studied the smile lines and deep gray eyes, memorizing her face as I had Isabelle's. Again, I kissed her forehead, and with a sad smile she patted my cheek and took a step back.

"Write to me," she said firmly, sounding like the mother I always had. "And come visit when you're feeling better, alright? If I can get off work for a day or so, maybe Isabelle and I can visit you."

I tightened my lips but nodded, knowing this was impossible. My mother worked several jobs a week, often leaving the apartment by six am and not returning till nine or ten that night. Isabelle would never see this valley, never know where her brother went. I could only pray she would forgive me for leaving her.

"Mr. Robinson!" the nurse called shrilly. I again touched my mother's cheek, gave an absent wave to the cab driver, and headed down the steep hill towards my new home.

The doctor was surely right about one thing; the air was breathable here. Not the normal, heavy air in the city where one had to almost wheeze to breath; this air flew through my nose with silky ease, and it smelled of fresh rain fall and slight sea breeze. Understandable, I thought as we walked down the hill. The ocean bordered the valley on the eastern side.

Pig Nurse decreed that, due to my condition, we must walk as slowly as possible down the hill to avoid straining my lungs anymore than necessary, but I did not mind. It gave me a chance to survey the new landscape before me; the massive waterfall on the far western side of the valley, pouring into a deep blue lake, the beautiful oak and cherry trees that bloomed with the beautiful fury of spring, the greenest grass I had ever seen obscuring the entire valley except for a narrow, worn-down stone path that was almost entirely claimed by the raging green inferno. My breath was taken away by the sheer beauty of it; I could never have dreamed that such an amazing place existed just an hour from the city, and I never had seen it before.

I surveyed the multiple small cottages in what appeared to be a village square, but did not pay any attention to the large farm just at the bottom of the hill until we headed into it. It was a pretty farm, I suppose, not knowing much about them myself. Several greenhouses sat near acres of plowed land where little green leaves had sprouted from the black earth. Two old wooden cottages stood back a little bit from the fields, and it was to the large one Pig Nurse turned and knocked.

"What are we doing here?" I murmured to the woman. She cast her eyes up to my face and snorted.

"You didn't think you'd get a place all to yourself, did you?" she snapped. "Houses in Forget-Me-Not are scarce. The woman at this farm has agreed to house you for free in exchange for a farm hand."

"_A farm hand_?" I repeated, stunned. Why did I know nothing about this? I had never so much as lifted a plow in my life, let alone farm. I had assumed I would live in a secluded little cottage by the ocean, with nothing to do but stroll around the beautiful valley and chat with the villagers. The entire point of me moving here was to avoid straining my lungs, and now they expected me to _farm_?

Before I could say anymore, the wooden door swung open on rusty hinges and the largest woman I had ever seen stepped out into the early sunlight.

She was incredible, taller than me, more than six feet, with large, muscled arms and a broad figure. Her hair was the brightest orange I had ever seen atop a human head, the color of a fresh carrot, and despite the loose bun she held it in frizzed in huge spirals. She wore a yellow dress almost completely covered by a gray apron, and her large hands were covered by leather gloves. When I finally looked towards her face, she held a grin that was so joyful it was ridiculous. Why in the world should she look so happy?

"You must be Marlin!" the giant woman cried, the words coming out in a laugh I would grow to know so well. Her voice held a hint of Irish, but mostly it was just like her; loud and imposing.

Vesta.

"The name's Vesta!" the woman laughed, reaching out with both hands to shake one of mine. She was so strong that that simple handshake shook my entire body. Vesta laughed.

"It's about time I got a hand around this old place!" the giant woman continued as she ushered us inside. "It gets pretty lonely around here, not that I mind. Solitude is a gift, ain't it? Well, a curse too, if it goes on too long. I got my little niece around here, but she's just a wee girl at five and not much of a help with the crops and such. Not that you're a spring chicken either, huh boy? Look at you! Skinny as a rail! You hungry? Bout time you got some meat on your bones. Pie?"

It was strange; I liked this woman. Normally I avoided over talkative people, especially women, like the plague, but there was something about her. She didn't blather on about no topic whatsoever, and she had a certain way about her that drew Marlin in. Was it because she told it like it was? It was true, I _was_ thin, and most likely wouldn't be much help around the farm.

Vesta ushered the Pig Nurse and I over to an old wooden table, plopping down two huge slices of berry pie in front of us, loaded with whipped cream and extra berries. "Go on!" the giant woman encouraged.

Eyeing her piece with evident distaste, Pig Nurse took a step back. "It was very pleasant meeting you, ma'am, but I have to be going," she grumbled. "Here are his medications that he is to take twice a day, every day, after meals. He will need frequent rest during the day, and should go to bed as early as possible to avoid any extra strain on his body. If you have any questions, please contact Mercy General."

"What am I, a dog?" I snapped over my pie, which was already half devoured. "I know what I have to do. You can leave now."

Vesta looked positively horrified by my rude exchange, but a flicker of amusement lit in her eyes. "Quite right then," she laughed. "Well, we'll be seeing you then."

Pig Nurse left as quickly as her short, stubby frame would allow, leaving my suitcase filled with more meds than clothing by the door. Vesta was oddly silent as I finished my pie and took the plate to the sink, washing and placing it in an old wooden cabinet.

"It is good to have you here, Marlin," Vesta called from the window opposite the small kitchen. She was hunched over something I couldn't see, but was obviously something that called for much of her attention. "It does get lonely here, and farm work ain't easy. I think you'll get used to it in time, though. Now!"

Vesta stood, dusted off her hands, and turned towards me, holding two small clay pots which held an alarmingly huge amount of herbs. _That_ was what she was caring for with such abundance? "Would you like to meet your other housemate?" Vesta asked, approaching me and laying the herbs by the sink. "You're going to love her!"

Little did I know.

I followed her down the narrow hallway, which held three doors smashed almost on top of one another. "Here's your room, right next to the only bathroom," Vesta explained, patting a hand on the wooden door closest to the end of the hallway. A rickety staircase took up a large portion of the cramped space, which Vesta immediately began to climb up. I followed her, unsure.

The attic was easily the most spacious room in the tiny house, and I never could figure out why Vesta insisted Celia take it as her bedroom. At the tiny, the wooden walls were bare except for small water paints of flowers and trees. Completely Celia. A tiny bed, dresser, dollhouse and toy chest took up the remainder of the room, as well as a built-in shelf that held countless worn paperbacks. A huge circular rug, once maybe white but now an aging shade of gray, took up the bulk of the room.

And there she sat. A beautiful child, with hair so long and straight that shined like newly-polished oak and the color of deep mahogany. This was the time before her beloved green bonnet, where her hair fell beautifully to her back. She wore a hand-sewn green patch dress and bare feet. Her skin was so pale it gave her the appearance of a porcelain doll, and when she turned away from her dolls with which she played I saw her eyes. To describe them as gray would be an insult. They were the most amazing shade of pale, bluish-gray with flecks of hazel, green, and darker blue. They were round and bordered by unusually thick and dark black lashes, which brushed her cheeks when she blinked or slept like the doll she resembled. And when she smiled… it was enough to make a man's heart break. A tiny mouthful of pearls shined up at me, almost blinding in their whiteness.

Perhaps I instantly fell in love with her because she reminded me so of Isabelle, albeit without the black hair. She was smaller than my sister at that age, but although she was only five, the beginnings of a womanly figure were already apparent. Celia stood and ran past me to Vesta, who scooped her up in a bear hug and swung her around, planting a kiss on her tiny button nose.

"What are you doing up here, my little flower?" Vesta asked, setting her down. Celia beamed up at her, the face of a child towards the adult she adores.

"Taking care of my dolls, Auntie Vesta," she said firmly, going to pick up a limp ragdoll with such care I almost laughed aloud. So much motherly affection at such a young age!

"Yes, I see. You're a good mother to them, dear. Now, do you remember when I said a new man was coming to live with us? Someone to help out around the farm? Well, this is Marlin, and he'll be living with us from now on."

"Uncle Marlin?" Celia inquired, gazing up at me. Smiling, I kissed her tiny hand and held it close to me. Usually small children made me uncomfortable, but this girl was something else.

"Yes! Uncle Marlin!" Vesta laughed, slapping me upside the back. "Perfect as usual, my pet. How about that, Marlin? You like to be my brother?"

I grinned in true pleasure. It was the first time of many Vesta would call me brother.

**Author's Note: The next chapter will be out in a few days, so long as you guys keep on rating and reviewing!**


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